This weekend (June 10-12) Naveen & I attended a beautiful conference that enriched and refreshed our whole life… and strengthened our already steadfast resolve to love each other till “death do us part”.

Family Life – a non-profit christian organization that seeks to “help for today & hope for tomorrow” for marriages and families hosted the “Weekend To Remember Getaway” for couples. I would seriously recommend to any married (also pre-married, re-married or military couple) in the United States to find one that’s coming near you (they are happening all year round) and attend for only good can come of this series of seminars. If you want the most important relationship that exists in your life (that being the one with your spouse) to be given the best chance at success and the happiness you search for then go for it! There is nothing to lose and SO MUCH to gain!

There are no guarantees given… only hope… and we could all do with walking away from something with more hope and joy than we walked in with! This was one of those times. I am so glad we went.

A few wisdom-packed, holy-spirit inspired sessions in the right time according to God’s amazing sovereignty catapulted our marriage into the next level of contentment and excitement, both.

What a wondrous thing to fall more in love with the husband (or wife) God gave us rather than seeing him (or her) as the enemy… take home message suggested by the main speakers if we didn’t get anything else. Needless to say we took home A LOT – and even though there was a conference manual with all the dot points in it from the seminars…me being me… I still had to write it out memorable quotes and anecdotes for my own memory’s sake. (a whole half of a notebook worth of new and old principles to prepare & guide us through the years ahead)

Marriage that just drifts along with no effort nor faith applied will always be without the joy and peace it has the potential to have – God’s plan was always good in creating this institution and it is we, the children who have distanced ourselves rebellious to his mysterious ways, that have demeaned marriage to a place of unhappiness. A marriage that is worked purposefully upon… given the priority it needs amongst our busy lives… and most importantly centred around a relationship with Jesus Christ… will not be easily broken.

It will not be conflict-free but it will know how to walk through the inevitable conflict that comes when two different people come together & become one flesh -which by the way has nothing to do with sex or becoming mirror images of one another but rather being vulnerable & exposed as one’s true self in safety and not being exploited or crushed but built up in both the weakness & strengths revealed. It will walk all the way, never giving up halfway, and come out the other side not feeling lost, confused and wounded but with hope and courage and victory, definitely more love than before.

Marriage is for the brave not the charming. For the humble and not the proud. For the patient and not the demanding. It goes against the grain of what comes natural to a human i.e. self -centredness and asks of us to put at the bottom of the list that which we value the most: ourselves, our own agendas & desires.

Marriage is so wonderful you were only ever meant to put that much effort with, and super-glue your soul to, one other being in life. Marriage is also the most beautiful & only shore upon which the waves of grace & forgiveness can completely work their wonders. To washing away as if just unimportant structures in the sand all of the past, the mistakes, dysfunctional family backgrounds, the character flaws and personality weaknesses that come with a person who has lived a little life. Yes, a great marriage has it’s hidden treasure buried somewhere, like a priceless pearl, in the work of forgiving as Christ forgave our sins.

I would love to share some of the revelations I got out of this conference… although most of what I have written today is basically just the overflow of my own bubbling heart after such a fulfilling few days.

Lastly… but (even though it sounds cliche) definitely NOT LEAST of all that I wanted to say about this weekend…is that I’m so thankful for our friends Tina & Sunil who gifted us this experience for our wedding in Dec 2009 and for arranging for it to come together now and joining us… being a newly married couples themselves too… and for their hospitality in having us at their home for the weekend… you guys are awesome! 🙂 We love you both! It was a weekend together that we will remember when we are old and grey, with our grandchildren around us, and still very happily married.